1) The universe itself is also not something that exists inside the universe. Hence, if you think causality doesn’t apply to your god, you shouldn’t think causality applies to the universe as a whole either.
(thus, your characterization of the big bang as a “theory that has no explanation of the facts” vs. theism as a theory which does explain the facts, is wrong)
2) You claim your religion predicts the future (“makes predictions about the future (even if you do not believe that the results can be observed)”). Presumably you refer to various afterlife-scenarios. The big bang theory predicts far more things which can be observed. Hence there is no reason for your theory (theism) to rise to the status of a hypothesis in the first place. Read Privileging the Hypothesis
3) The notion of “causality” in physics has changed a lot since the days of classical physics. It no longer corresponds to the naive notion of causality that might naively seem to require an uncaused cause.
An interesting point—all my learning in astrophysics up to now had basically said that ‘we don’t know how it can have happened given that the laws of entropy and thermodynamics seem to prevent it’. Although the universe as a whole seems to obey at least some physical laws, e.g. expanding at a constant rate, etc. I happen to believe that there is a scientific explanation to be found for the Big Bang—I doubt that God will have created a perfectly cohesive set of scientific laws until you get to a certain point where he says ‘Oh, all right, you got me there’. My point was more directed at what seems to be ‘any scientific theory, even if it can’t explain all the evidence, is better than any other theory, even if it can’t be disproved’.
The Big Bang and theism are in no way mutually exclusive—I myself have no problem that the Big Bang is probably the origin of the universe. As for predictions, there are various prophecies and suchlike in the old testament that were fulfilled in the new testament—though you will probably call doubt onto the reliability of these sources.
My understanding of quantum physics is not as good as I wish it were—what is different?
The Big Bang and theism are in no way mutually exclusive
I agree
As for predictions, there are various prophecies and suchlike in the old testament
that were fulfilled in the new testament—though you will probably call doubt onto
the reliability of these sources.
Those are predictions about the past, not about the future. If you accept this as evidence, have you studied a large amount of other religions to see if they make similar claims? And if you had lived before the events of the new testament, would you have been able to distinguish the (supposedly true) “old testament” predictions from the (false) predictions made by thousands of other prophets of thousands other religions/sects?
My understanding of quantum physics is not as good as I wish it were—what is
different?
First, radio-active decay is uncaused (or so it appears, to the extent that quantum mechanics is correct). But that is not the point I was trying to make.
In (special) relativity, “causality” basically refers to “all observers agree about light cones” or “if information flows from space-time point a to space-time point b, all observers will agree that the information went from a to b instead of vice versa”, or simply “No one observes information travelling to the past”. No notion of “all effects have a cause” or anything like that.
In mechanics, say the description of a billiard table, (naive) causality seems obvious: why did this ball change its direction? Because it was hit by another ball! all the way back to a player hitting the first ball. But, there is the principle of least action (the related principle of least time is better known but describes light only). The principle of least action says that the trajectory of all those billiard balls is a stationary point of some functional (the action). In this view, there is nothing special about ball collisions. We ask “why did the ball change its direction (when it was hit by another ball or by the wall)” but we might as well ask “why didn’t the ball change its direction (when it wasn’t hit by another ball or by the wall)” and the first question is no more natural than the second. And the answer to both questions is the same: “because that path is a stationary point of the action functional”.
The naive notion of causality requires a known “natural” or “unperturbed” state. Only if we already know Newton’s first law, then we can be surprised at the ball’s change of direction. How would we apply this to the beginning of the universe? If you don’t already know the natural unperturbed behaviour of the universe at/very near the big bang, how can you justify being surprised that it behaved the way it behaved? So surprised, in fact, that you have to imagine one or more high-complexity extra-universal entity(s) kick-starting the process?
So using scientific notions of causality near the big bang will get you nowhere—they don’t say anything about causes, just about the order of certain events.
“Those are predictions about the past, not about the future.”
So Deuteronomy 28 predicted the scattering of the Jews to all nations of the earth. Then in Deuteronomy 30 it is predicted that they will be gathered from all nations of the earth (as well as if they are driven to the outmost parts of heaven they will be gathered from their). The Jews during the Roman times were scattered (documented fact) to all nations and have more recently begun to be gathered again to their ancient lands. (see Isaiah 11:11 as well).
That was a prediction that up until this last century was about the future, and a prediction that the century before was considered impossible. Take from it what you will.
1) The universe itself is also not something that exists inside the universe. Hence, if you think causality doesn’t apply to your god, you shouldn’t think causality applies to the universe as a whole either. (thus, your characterization of the big bang as a “theory that has no explanation of the facts” vs. theism as a theory which does explain the facts, is wrong)
2) You claim your religion predicts the future (“makes predictions about the future (even if you do not believe that the results can be observed)”). Presumably you refer to various afterlife-scenarios. The big bang theory predicts far more things which can be observed. Hence there is no reason for your theory (theism) to rise to the status of a hypothesis in the first place. Read Privileging the Hypothesis
3) The notion of “causality” in physics has changed a lot since the days of classical physics. It no longer corresponds to the naive notion of causality that might naively seem to require an uncaused cause.
An interesting point—all my learning in astrophysics up to now had basically said that ‘we don’t know how it can have happened given that the laws of entropy and thermodynamics seem to prevent it’. Although the universe as a whole seems to obey at least some physical laws, e.g. expanding at a constant rate, etc. I happen to believe that there is a scientific explanation to be found for the Big Bang—I doubt that God will have created a perfectly cohesive set of scientific laws until you get to a certain point where he says ‘Oh, all right, you got me there’. My point was more directed at what seems to be ‘any scientific theory, even if it can’t explain all the evidence, is better than any other theory, even if it can’t be disproved’.
The Big Bang and theism are in no way mutually exclusive—I myself have no problem that the Big Bang is probably the origin of the universe. As for predictions, there are various prophecies and suchlike in the old testament that were fulfilled in the new testament—though you will probably call doubt onto the reliability of these sources.
My understanding of quantum physics is not as good as I wish it were—what is different?
I agree
Those are predictions about the past, not about the future. If you accept this as evidence, have you studied a large amount of other religions to see if they make similar claims? And if you had lived before the events of the new testament, would you have been able to distinguish the (supposedly true) “old testament” predictions from the (false) predictions made by thousands of other prophets of thousands other religions/sects?
First, radio-active decay is uncaused (or so it appears, to the extent that quantum mechanics is correct). But that is not the point I was trying to make.
In (special) relativity, “causality” basically refers to “all observers agree about light cones” or “if information flows from space-time point a to space-time point b, all observers will agree that the information went from a to b instead of vice versa”, or simply “No one observes information travelling to the past”. No notion of “all effects have a cause” or anything like that.
In mechanics, say the description of a billiard table, (naive) causality seems obvious: why did this ball change its direction? Because it was hit by another ball! all the way back to a player hitting the first ball. But, there is the principle of least action (the related principle of least time is better known but describes light only). The principle of least action says that the trajectory of all those billiard balls is a stationary point of some functional (the action). In this view, there is nothing special about ball collisions. We ask “why did the ball change its direction (when it was hit by another ball or by the wall)” but we might as well ask “why didn’t the ball change its direction (when it wasn’t hit by another ball or by the wall)” and the first question is no more natural than the second. And the answer to both questions is the same: “because that path is a stationary point of the action functional”.
The naive notion of causality requires a known “natural” or “unperturbed” state. Only if we already know Newton’s first law, then we can be surprised at the ball’s change of direction. How would we apply this to the beginning of the universe? If you don’t already know the natural unperturbed behaviour of the universe at/very near the big bang, how can you justify being surprised that it behaved the way it behaved? So surprised, in fact, that you have to imagine one or more high-complexity extra-universal entity(s) kick-starting the process?
So using scientific notions of causality near the big bang will get you nowhere—they don’t say anything about causes, just about the order of certain events.
“Those are predictions about the past, not about the future.”
So Deuteronomy 28 predicted the scattering of the Jews to all nations of the earth. Then in Deuteronomy 30 it is predicted that they will be gathered from all nations of the earth (as well as if they are driven to the outmost parts of heaven they will be gathered from their). The Jews during the Roman times were scattered (documented fact) to all nations and have more recently begun to be gathered again to their ancient lands. (see Isaiah 11:11 as well).
That was a prediction that up until this last century was about the future, and a prediction that the century before was considered impossible. Take from it what you will.
People who knew about that prophecy deliberately helped to fulfill it. That destroys much of its value as evidence.